SATURATION POINT

The online editorial and curatorial project for reductive, geometric and systems artists working in the UK

Essays by Karl England, Guido Winkler and Gabriele Evertz

Written to accompany the exhibition ‘Extended Process’, March 2017.

AN INDUCTION | Gabriele Evertz

I am interested in the sensation and perception of color interaction. The history and theory of color serve as organizing tools. Simple geometric elements function as basic formal units, or color situations.

Color requires a vessel. Bands, stripes, and diagonals are among the most neutral shapes available to me. In visual experience, we expect symmetry. A centre is established when two main structural lines cross. It becomes the basis for subjective action, spreading energy equally through the visual field, because the viewer’s glance coincides with the axis of perspective. To counteract this element of stability, less predictable breaks along a line can be employed to induce a state of unrest.

Of all of the visual elements, color is the most unstable factor, depending on its placement, size, and quantity. Whereas shapes always hold their identity - for instance, a diamond is still seen as a square tipped on its point - color releases a dynamic force that seems to advance or recede in the pictorial field. It creates afterimages and appears to shift color appearance. Thus, while a linear action in time traverses the space of a picture, color contrasts or assimilations are experienced in duration.

This series of investigations explores the balance between both centric and eccentric forces. In planning my work, I intentionally keep the presence of the observer in mind. The sudden perception of color shifts and the sensation of intensive light emanations, which come with immersive viewing, are the rewards that the painting bestows on us. Vision, feeling, and thought come together in the perceptive viewer, who becomes a partner, thus completing the meaning of the painting.